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Missing jetliner was hijacked, investigators in Malaysia say Motive not known, but evidence called 'conclusive'

By Eileen Ng and Joan LowyAssociated Press

Posted:
03/15/2014 12:01:00 AM CDT

Updated:
03/15/2014 12:01:17 AM CDT

Relatives of Chinese passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 leave from a room at a hotel in Beijing, China, Friday, March 14, 2014. A Malaysia Airlines plane sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication that it was still flying for hundreds of miles or more, a U.S. official briefed on the search said Thursday. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Investigators have concluded that one or more people with significant flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, switched off communication devices and steered it off-course, a Malaysian government official involved in the investigation said Saturday.

No motive has been established and no demands have been made known, and it is not yet clear where the plane was taken, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. The official said that hijacking was no longer a theory.

"It is conclusive," he said.

He said evidence that led to the conclusion were signs that the plane's communications were switched off deliberately, data about the flight path and indications the plane was steered in a way to avoid detection by radar.

The Boeing 777's communication with the ground was severed just under one hour into a flight March 8 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Malaysian officials previously have said radar data suggest it may have turned back toward and crossed over the Malaysian peninsula after setting out on a northeastern path toward the Chinese capital.

Earlier, an American official told the Associated Press that investigators are examining the possibility of "human intervention" in the plane's disappearance, adding it may have been "an act of piracy."

While other theories are still being examined, the U.S. official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777's transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.

The Malaysian official said only a skilled aviator could navigate the plane the way it was flown after its last confirmed location over the South China Sea. The official said it had been established with a "more than 50 percent" degree of certainty that military radar had picked up the missing plane after it dropped off civilian radar.

Why anyone would want to do this is unclear.

A man writes a message on a banner for missing Malaysian Airline System Bhd. (MAS) Flight 370 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, Malaysia, on Friday, March 14, 2014. Indian forces expanded the search for the missing Malaysian airliner to the Bay of Bengal after evidence mounted the plane with 239 people on board may have flown long after controllers lost contact with it a week ago. Photographer: Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg

Malaysian authorities and others will be urgently investigating the backgrounds of the two pilots and 10 crew members, as well the 227 passengers on board.

Some experts have said that pilot suicide may be the most likely explanation for the disappearance, as was suspected in a SilkAir crash during a flight from Singapore to Jakarta in 1997 and an EgyptAir flight in 1999.

A massive international search effort began initially in the South China Sea where the plane's transponders stopped transmitting. It has since been expanded onto the other side of the Malay peninsula up into the Andaman Sea and into the Indian Ocean.

The plane had enough fuel to fly for at least five hours after its last know location, meaning a vast swath of South and Southeast Asia would be within its reach. Investigators are analyzing radar and satellite data from around the region to try and pinpoint its final location, something that will be vital to hopes of finding the plane, and answering the mystery of what happened to it.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government announced that the Haixun 31, a civilian patrol ship that has been the command vessel for China's contingent in the search, would move from the Gulf of Thailand to the Strait of Malacca, on the other side of the peninsula. A report on Chinese state television news said a group of experts had advised the Chinese Maritime Search and Rescue Center to "expand the scope of the search."

On Friday the U.S. Navy continued its maritime aircraft patrols, focusing on the area to the west of Malaysia, said Cmdr. William Marks, spokesman for the 7th Fleet. The Navy's new P-8A Poseidon patrol craft arrived Friday, he said. The aircraft, built with the airframe of a Boeing 737, has a range of more than 1,300 miles and can search vast swathes of ocean. India on Thursday said it was also deploying its own variant of the aircraft, the P-8i, as well as the C-130J Hercules and other aircraft.

The difficulty, Marks said in an interview, was that the area is best patrolled by aircraft, but ships and helicopters are capable of more thorough and intense searches.

"Everything is a trade-off. I think the challenge is the sheer size of the area," Marks said.